Few Tartars marry more than one wife. They seldom take a second while they live in peace with the first. They expend a great deal in wedding entertainments; even the peasantry sometimes lavish a thousand roubles on such occasions. The higher classes will never bestow a younger daughter in marriage before the elder is disposed of, though a much higher price should be offered for the junior sister. When a murza, or Tartar noble, enters the apartments of his women, they all rise up respectfully, and repeat the same ceremony when he leaves the room, though he may come and go very frequently. Very aged women are, by permission, excused from this inconvenient homage, on account of their infirmities. But though the women are kept in a state of such complete subjection, personal abuse is considered very dishonorable, and the Tartars are seldom guilty of it. In case of ill usage, a wife may complain to magistrates, who, attended by some of the principal people of the village, go to the house, pronounce a formal divorce, and give the woman permission to return to her own relations. Tartar mothers nurse their infants till they are two or three years old, and think Christian women very cruel to wean them so early. There is little variety in amusements. The men and women generally have separate dances. Those of the men are lively and martial; but the female dances consist principally in slow motions and changing attitudes, while the face is covered by the hands. The women in general have no share in the amusements of men; because this could not be without violating Mohammedan ideas of decorum. The day when any tribe removes to fresh pastures is always a day of festivity. The women, sure of being seen by all the men, decorate themselves in their best style, and put on all their store of ornaments. The Mohammedan Tartars often make war on their neighbors, for the purpose of obtaining slaves to sell. They frequently steal children for this purpose; and if their own daughters are beautiful, or their wives give them the least offence, they do not hesitate to sell them to the Jewish slave merchants, who are always traversing the country.